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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24194617">there is a grace too powerful to name</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalvaxus/pseuds/kalvaxus'>kalvaxus</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dimension 20 (Web Series), Fantasy High (Web Series)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Behind the Scenes, Canon Compliant, Domestic Fluff, F/F, Family Fluff, Found Family, Gen, Kitchen talks, MILFs, Mother-Son Relationship, Motherhood, Mothers Being Better, Multi, Slice of Life, Tenderness, lowkey inspired by toegolds' art, with an emphasis on the M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-03 01:08:34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,685</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24194617</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalvaxus/pseuds/kalvaxus</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Hallariel says, “I am not a very good mother.”</p><p>(Cathilda and Hallariel talk about motherhood, forgiveness, and a little bit of moving on.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Cathilda the Black &amp; Hallariel Seacaster, Cathilda/Hallariel (pre-relationship)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>54</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>there is a grace too powerful to name</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>first d20 fic is not what i expected but hey what can u do? sometimes seacasters barge into your brain</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The shadow in the corner of the kitchen hardly bothers Cathilda; she’s grown used to Hallariel’s presence in this little nook of the manor as of late, especially with how much the other woman is set on learning how to cook. After a few failed attempts, Cathilda decreed that Hallariel (until she figures out how to make food that won’t send every inhabitant of the manor to the closest healer) was to stay and watch when Cathilda was at work before she tried it herself. It’s helped quite a bit - the young master Fabian hasn’t even noticed their last failed attempt because there was so little smoke!</p><p>But there’s something about this silence that feels almost a little sullen. For all that Hallariel is most definitely not a Seacaster boy, she <i>does</i> have much of her son’s own countenance within her, strange as that is (Cathilda the Black is not above a snippy thought or two, especially when it comes to how incredible it is that Fabian Aramais Seacaster retained any of his mother’s mannerisms at all, considering how Hallariel was a gaping hole in Fabian’s childhood). This feels like a grudging silence, like the sighing breath someone takes in before they say something that they feel they might regret, or something that hurts them to say.</p><p>Cathilda would know. There hasn’t been enough of those moments in this house for a long, long time (so many careless, cutting words thrown around so impulsively), and so recognizing this stillness for what it is makes her stop moving for a second. She sets down the knife she had been using to chop green onions and wipes her hands on her apron. “Madam,” she says, reproving, “Do you have something you’ve wished to bring to my attention since you started standing there?”</p><p>To the untrained eye, Hallariel remains impassive, but again - Cathilda knows Fabian, and Fabian has his mother’s tells. She says, tone unruffled, “I needed to speak with you, Cathilda.”</p><p>Cathilda makes a tutting noise with her tongue. On her side, the kettle whistles, and she slides it off the stove absentmindedly. What could the madam want from her? Another discussion on housekeeping? Cathilda <i>has</i> been hinting toward wanting a bit of a break, not for long, but for a day or two, and certainly that would warrant a sort of crash-course in looking after oneself, considering the state of the Seacaster manor and how high-maintenance mother and son are. “Here I am, madam,” she says, smiling a little, and dips her head in an approximation of a curtsey. “What would you be needing from me?”</p><p>Hallariel...fidgets. Or does her approximation of a fidget, at the very least, which means that a flash of consternation crosses her features before her brow wrinkles, and she awkwardly answers, “Cathilda, I know...you and Fabian are...close.”</p><p>“Yes,” Cathilda agrees. There’s no need to obfuscate or make excuses, not when they’re like this, just two women talking about their son in the kitchen of the house they share.</p><p>“I’m not,” Hallariel says, measuring each syllable as carefully as Cathilda measures out ingredients for new recipes she hasn’t gotten the hang of yet, “Upset about that. I understand that I...was lacking as a mother, when Fabian was younger. It was natural of him to latch on to you.”</p><p>“There wasn’t anything natural about a son seeking out maternal comfort from a maid because he wasn’t being paid enough attention from his family,” Cathilda answers. It is, perhaps, a little too on the nose for it to be something a normal maid would say to her employer, but Cathilda and the Seacasters have never quite been normal, no matter how hard some of them had tried. And Hallariel doesn’t <i>scare</i> her. They both understand that quite well.</p><p>“Cathilda,” Hallariel says helplessly, and her mask cracks at last. She pinches the bridge of her nose, breathing in carefully, and turns a beseeching gaze upon Cathilda. It is most incongruous with her features, which are refined and stately, that of a queen ordering her subjects around rather than a woman in a kimono at five in the morning begging her maid for help. She closes her eyes. “I know I am not doing very well, and I am not a very good mother, but I <i>am</i> trying - I’ve been speaking to him. Talking to him about...things other than swordplay. It’s just...been hard. I don’t know how to communicate with Fabian.”</p><p>“I’m only giving credit where credit’s due, madam,” Cathilda says, a little sharply, but she relents when she sees Hallariel’s shoulders hitch up in a flutter of involuntary movement. Bless her heart, she <i>is</i> trying, isn’t she? It’s not enough - too little, too late - but it’s still something, regardless, and Cathilda has always had somewhat of a soft spot for hopeless cases if only because it’s only that much more satisfying when it turns out they’re not so hopeless after all. She reaches out, and to her immediate pleasure Hallariel doesn’t draw back at all. The madam of the house allows her to pat her cheek very gently, and maybe she is better off for it, if the way she relaxes just so into the touch is any indication.</p><p>“Cathilda,” Hallariel says again, softer. Asking again. Pleading.</p><p>“I understand,” Cathilda says firmly, making up her mind. She dusts her hands off on her apron again and turns back to the stove. She can still feel Hallariel’s gaze on the back of her head, but less intensely so. “I just - I do so wish that you would have talked to him earlier, madam. It would have been easier if you got into the practice of it. Master Fabian…” She shakes her head. “But it’s alright,” she says, as if to herself, and she reaches for the cupboard above her head. “I am glad, at the very least, that you are trying now. Not,” she adds, “That trying is above the minimum, but - I understand that you were going through things. I understand. People are allowed to be people outside of the relationships that bind them to others. They are allowed to be themselves. But your son is also owed a part of you, and he loves you, and I wish you had seen that and understood the weight of it a bit sooner.”</p><p>Hallariel nods. There’s no attempt at deflecting the truth, as it should be, and that makes Cathilda unthaw the last bit she needs to in order to speak to Hallariel and say what she wants at long last. Long-windedness is certainly not a habit of hers.</p><p>“I’ll give you some advice after we finish our breakfast,” Cathilda answers, turning back to the stove. The spices are exactly where she expects them to be, although she’s not sure why it would be any different. “It would help, I think, if you spoke to him less like you expected him to be like Bill and less like you expected him to be like you. Master Fabian has learned in time that the legacies in this house are not necessarily his to carry out, and that he is as much his own person as I am my own. I suppose prior to the end of his freshman year, everyone <i>did</i> treat him like his father, but that is a thing of the past now, which I am very much grateful for.”</p><p>“I’ll take a note of that,” Hallariel demurs, and the sound of her voice makes Cathilda think she very much is. A feather-light touch to her elbow commands Cathilda’s attention, and she turns around and away from the heating pan on the stovetop to look into the elven women’s eyes, which are as sharp and lucid as can be. “Cathilda, I don’t - I - truly, I appreciate what you’ve done for this household. I don’t...I understand it’s not your job to look after us to this extent.”</p><p>“That isn’t the type of thing you should worry about now, madam,” Cathilda says, and she says it the way only she knows how: with so much love <i>madam</i> or <i>master Fabian</i> sounds like <i>darling</i> or <i>beloved</i>. She smiles up at Hallariel, the corners of her lips twitching up into an involuntary smile, and goodness, the Seacaster family is truly something, isn’t it? The words that come next seem innocuous enough, but they are the kindest form of forgiveness that Cathilda knows how to give a woman named Hallariel: a reassurance that the past has been forgiven, so long as she remembers to abide by the promises she has newly made.  “I’ve grown used to taking care of this household, and I’ve found that I’ve grown quite fond of all the Seacasters. Your worries about reconnecting with your son is far more than enough for your mind to fuss over, as I think you’ll find out.”</p><p>The kitchen is silent for a moment. There are no words, Cathilda finds out, that can quite adequately describe the expression on Hallariel’s face at that moment, because she does not look quite scared, or frightened, or intensely sorrowful in the way one might think. It is the look of a woman who has finally been offered the absolution she was seeking from one of the people she wanted it from, but will not stop working until she <i>earns</i> the love and respect she has been given so freely.</p><p>The breadth of her vulnerability shines through, and Cathilda is intensely reminded of the love she harbors for this family and this woman.</p><p>“Our family,” Hallariel murmurs, her voice catching on the words so laden with gratitude,  and then she pulls Cathilda close in a hug that the maid could have never expected and sighs against the back of Cathilda’s neck with the warmest, weariest expression of heartfelt emotion that Cathilda has perhaps ever experienced. She hides her smile against the silk of the madam’s kimono, and reminds herself that the kettle, unfortunately, has probably grown cold, and breakfast might be the tiniest bit late today. But Cathilda, if nothing else, is a capable maid: she’ll adapt.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>hit me up! you can drop me a ko-fi if you'd like!: https://ko-fi.com/figueroths</p></blockquote></div></div>
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